When she saw me, a flash of anger crossed her face, and she turned her head aside. Then, with an attempted smile, she looked at me, and said,
“I have met with a small accident! Happening to hear that the cat-woman was again in the city, I went down to send her away. But she had one of her horrid3 creatures with her: it sprang upon me, and had its claws in my neck before I could strike it!”
She gave a shiver, and I could not help pitying her, although I knew she lied, for her wounds were real, and her face reminded me of how she looked in the cave. My heart began to reproach me that I had let her fight unaided, and I suppose I looked the compassion4 I felt.
“Child of folly5!” she said, with another attempted smile, “—not crying, surely!—Wait for me here; I am going into the black hall for a moment. I want you to get me something for my scratches.”
But I followed her close. Out of my sight I feared her.
The instant the princess entered, I heard a buzzing sound as of many low voices, and, one portion after another, the assembly began to be shiftingly illuminated6, as by a ray that went travelling from spot to spot. Group after group would shine out for a space, then sink back into the general vagueness, while another part of the vast company would grow momently bright.
Some of the actions going on when thus illuminated, were not unknown to me; I had been in them, or had looked on them, and so had the princess: present with every one of them I now saw her. The skull-headed dancers footed the grass in the forest-hall: there was the princess looking in at the door! The fight went on in the Evil Wood: there was the princess urging it! Yet I was close behind her all the time, she standing7 motionless, her head sunk on her bosom8. The confused murmur9 continued, the confused commotion10 of colours and shapes; and still the ray went shifting and showing. It settled at last on the hollow in the heath, and there was the princess, walking up and down, and trying in vain to wrap the vapour around her! Then first I was startled at what I saw: the old librarian walked up to her, and stood for a moment regarding her; she fell; her limbs forsook11 her and fled; her body vanished.
A wild shriek12 rang through the echoing place, and with the fall of her eidolon, the princess herself, till then standing like a statue in front of me, fell heavily, and lay still. I turned at once and went out: not again would I seek to restore her! As I stood trembling beside the cage, I knew that in the black ellipsoid I had been in the brain of the princess!—I saw the tail of the leopardess quiver once.
While still endeavouring to compose myself, I heard the voice of the princess beside me.
“Come now,” she said; “I will show you what I want you to do for me.”
She led the way into the court. I followed in dazed compliance13.
The moon was near the zenith, and her present silver seemed brighter than the gold of the absent sun. She brought me through the trees to the tallest of them, the one in the centre. It was not quite like the rest, for its branches, drawing their ends together at the top, made a clump14 that looked from beneath like a fir-cone. The princess stood close under it, gazing up, and said, as if talking to herself,
“On the summit of that tree grows a tiny blossom which would at once heal my scratches! I might be a dove for a moment and fetch it, but I see a little snake in the leaves whose bite would be worse to a dove than the bite of a tiger to me!—How I hate that cat-woman!”
She turned to me quickly, saying with one of her sweetest smiles,
“Can you climb?”
The smile vanished with the brief question, and her face changed to a look of sadness and suffering. I ought to have left her to suffer, but the way she put her hand to her wounded neck went to my heart.
I considered the tree. All the way up to the branches, were projections15 on the stem like the remnants on a palm of its fallen leaves.
“I can climb that tree,” I answered.
“Not with bare feet!” she returned.
In my haste to follow the leopardess disappearing, I had left my sandals in my room.
“It is no matter,” I said; “I have long gone barefoot!”
Again I looked at the tree, and my eyes went wandering up the stem until my sight lost itself in the branches. The moon shone like silvery foam16 here and there on the rugged17 bole, and a little rush of wind went through the top with a murmurous18 sound as of water falling softly into water. I approached the tree to begin my ascent19 of it. The princess stopped me.
“I cannot let you attempt it with your feet bare!” she insisted. “A fall from the top would kill you!”
“So would a bite from the snake!” I answered—not believing, I confess, that there was any snake.
“It would not hurt YOU!” she replied. “—Wait a moment.”
She tore from her garment the two wide borders that met in front, and kneeling on one knee, made me put first my left foot, then my right on the other, and bound them about with the thick embroidered20 strips.
“You have left the ends hanging, princess!” I said.
“I have nothing to cut them off with; but they are not long enough to get entangled,” she replied.
I turned to the tree, and began to climb.
Now in Bulika the cold after sundown was not so great as in certain other parts of the country—especially about the sexton’s cottage; yet when I had climbed a little way, I began to feel very cold, grew still colder as I ascended21, and became coldest of all when I got among the branches. Then I shivered, and seemed to have lost my hands and feet.
There was hardly any wind, and the branches did not sway in the least, yet, as I approached the summit, I became aware of a peculiar22 unsteadiness: every branch on which I placed foot or laid hold, seemed on the point of giving way. When my head rose above the branches near the top, and in the open moonlight I began to look about for the blossom, that instant I found myself drenched23 from head to foot. The next, as if plunged24 in a stormy water, I was flung about wildly, and felt myself sinking. Tossed up and down, tossed this way and tossed that way, rolled over and over, checked, rolled the other way and tossed up again, I was sinking lower and lower. Gasping25 and gurgling and choking, I fell at last upon a solid bottom.
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1
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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3
horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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forsook
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| forsake的过去式 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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compliance
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| n.顺从；服从；附和；屈从 | |
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clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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15
projections
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| 预测( projection的名词复数 )； 投影； 投掷； 突起物 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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murmurous
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| adj.低声的 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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drenched
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| adj.湿透的；充满的v.使湿透( drench的过去式和过去分词 )；在某人（某物）上大量使用（某液体） | |
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24
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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